Marriage as an institution, not the individuals in it, causes conjugal misery.

Evidence

This balanced couple is not a utopia; such couples exist sometimes even within marriage, more often outside of it; some are united by a great sexual love that leaves them free in their friendships and occupations; others are linked by a friendship that does not hamper their sexual freedom; more rarely there are still others who are both lovers and friends but without seeking in each other their exclusive reason for living. Many nuances are possible in the relations of a man and a woman: in companionship, pleasure, confidence, tenderness, complicity, and love, they can be for each other the most fruitful source of joy, richness, and strength offered to a human being. It is not the individuals who are responsible for the failure of marriage: it is—unlike what Bonald, Comte, and Tolstoy claim—the institution that is perverted at its base. Declaring that a man and a woman who do not even choose each other must meet each other’s needs in all respects, at once, for their whole life, is a monstrosity that necessarily gives rise to hypocrisy, hostility, and unhappiness. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1368

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the institution-vs-individual framing of 19th-century critics (Bonald, Comte, Tolstoy ring-fenced by Beauvoir) and later Foucauldian institutional critique. — connects to: Universal social inhumanity takes revenge on marriages that seemed exempt — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 27; Convention-based marriage cannot reliably generate love or lifelong sexual satisfaction — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1191; Long-conditioned marriage feels like self-poisoning one can no longer renounce. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1350 (+2 more)